The money for German battery storage exists. What's scarce is bankability - the clarity that lets a lender actually commit. What are banks really evaluating when they look at BESS projects in Germany and why regulatory uncertainty, grid connection risk, and the structure of offtake agreements can make or break the chances of getting debt across the line.

In this conversation, Ed is joined by Florian Hock, Senior Director, Origination Energy Europe at NORD/LB to explore what separates a financeable BESS project from one that stalls.

If you're developing, financing, or investing in battery storage in Germany or watching the market, this is the episode to understand what the financing layer actually looks like from the inside.

0:00 Introduction

0:57 Banks as advisors, not ATMs

2:50 Financial & regulatory hurdles

7:46 Defining bankability

9:01 Regulatory risks to revenues

10:25 Tolling contracts & capacity markets

16:37 The grid fees debate

19:03 Offtake 1.0 to 4.0

22:49 Germany vs UK valuations

25:10 Navigating ancillary saturation

27:49 The bankability framework

33:33 Beyond capital: NIBC's role

36:53 Grid connection delays

38:14 Flexible connection agreements

39:56 Lessons from the UK

43:31 One change for Europe

#BatteryStorage #EnergyFinance #GermanEnergyMarket #BESS #EnergyTransition

The money for German battery storage exists. What's scarce is bankability - the clarity that lets a lender actually commit. What are banks really evaluating when they look at BESS projects in Germany and why regulatory uncertainty, grid connection risk, and the structure of offtake agreements can make or break the chances of getting debt across the line.

In this conversation, Ed is joined by Florian Hock, Senior Director, Origination Energy Europe at NORD/LB to explore what separates a financeable BESS project from one that stalls.

If you're developing, financing, or investing in battery storage in Germany or watching the market, this is the episode to understand what the financing layer actually looks like from the inside.

0:00 Introduction

0:57 Banks as advisors, not ATMs

2:50 Financial & regulatory hurdles

7:46 Defining bankability

9:01 Regulatory risks to revenues

10:25 Tolling contracts & capacity markets

16:37 The grid fees debate

19:03 Offtake 1.0 to 4.0

22:49 Germany vs UK valuations

25:10 Navigating ancillary saturation

27:49 The bankability framework

33:33 Beyond capital: NIBC's role

36:53 Grid connection delays

38:14 Flexible connection agreements

39:56 Lessons from the UK

43:31 One change for Europe

#BatteryStorage #EnergyFinance #GermanEnergyMarket #BESS #EnergyTransition

The AI boom has created an energy problem no one quite planned for. Every new data center needs power now - not in three years when the grid connection finally arrives. Developers are skipping the queue, installing on-site generation at a scale that would have seemed extraordinary five years ago.

But speed to power isn't the only pressure. Data center operators are also staring down net zero commitments, sustainability departments that want decarbonisation, and an energy trilemma of cost, carbon, and resilience.

In this episode Alejandro is joined by Alex Marshall, Group Business Development and Marketing Director at Clarke Energy. Alex explains why gas engines have become the bridging technology of choice for hyperscale data centers, what a 450 MW peaking station outside London actually looks like, and whether the engineering department and the sustainability team will ever agree.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst

Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter: https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch

Chapters

- 0:00 — Introduction

- 1:44 — Guest intro: Alex Marshall & Clarke Energy

- 3:30 — Data centers and the shift to self-generation

- 5:00 — The inflection point: Ireland to the US

- 7:00 — Biggest project: 450 MW peaking station, London

- 7:45 — Gas engines vs batteries: what fills the dunkelflaute gap

- 9:00 — What US data centers actually buy

- 10:20 — The net zero pathway for gas engines

- 14:00 — Speed to power vs cost savings

- 17:00 — Europe vs US: sustainability and energy culture

- 18:00 — 45Y production tax credit: what's at stake

- 22:10 — Clarke Energy's business model

- 22:40 — Project highlights: Ireland, Indiana, Nigeria, Romania

- 25:00 — The contrarian view: biogas & organic waste

The AI boom has created an energy problem no one quite planned for. Every new data center needs power now - not in three years when the grid connection finally arrives. Developers are skipping the queue, installing on-site generation at a scale that would have seemed extraordinary five years ago.

But speed to power isn't the only pressure. Data center operators are also staring down net zero commitments, sustainability departments that want decarbonisation, and an energy trilemma of cost, carbon, and resilience.

In this episode Alejandro is joined by Alex Marshall, Group Business Development and Marketing Director at Clarke Energy. Alex explains why gas engines have become the bridging technology of choice for hyperscale data centers, what a 450 MW peaking station outside London actually looks like, and whether the engineering department and the sustainability team will ever agree.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst

Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter: https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch

Chapters

- 0:00 — Introduction

- 1:44 — Guest intro: Alex Marshall & Clarke Energy

- 3:30 — Data centers and the shift to self-generation

- 5:00 — The inflection point: Ireland to the US

- 7:00 — Biggest project: 450 MW peaking station, London

- 7:45 — Gas engines vs batteries: what fills the dunkelflaute gap

- 9:00 — What US data centers actually buy

- 10:20 — The net zero pathway for gas engines

- 14:00 — Speed to power vs cost savings

- 17:00 — Europe vs US: sustainability and energy culture

- 18:00 — 45Y production tax credit: what's at stake

- 22:10 — Clarke Energy's business model

- 22:40 — Project highlights: Ireland, Indiana, Nigeria, Romania

- 25:00 — The contrarian view: biogas & organic waste

Australia has built one of the world's most competitive battery storage markets — and it got there faster than almost anywhere else on the planet. What started as an experiment in South Australia in 2017 has grown into a mature, multi-gigawatt industry that is now redefining what grid-scale batteries can do.

In this episode of Transmission, host Wendel Hortop sits down with Jérémie Yvon, Head of Energy Management at Neoen Australia, to explore how one of the country's largest renewable energy companies is navigating the rapidly evolving battery landscape across both the National Electricity Market (NEM) and the Western Australian Electricity Market (WEM).

They cover the maturation of the Australian battery market, how Neoen structures battery revenue across two very different market designs, the rise of virtual batteries and firm renewable PPAs, long-duration storage investment, and why Jérémie believes battery oversupply is a credible - and under appreciated - risk.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Wendel Hortop - Head of Australia

Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter:

https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch

Chapters

0:00 Introduction — the hospital generator analogy

1:45 Guest intro: Jérémie Yvon and Neoen Australia

4:30 NEM vs WEM: how battery economics differ

8:30 Hornsdale: from proof of concept to system services

11:30 NEM design — volatility and five-minute trading

14:00 WEM design — capacity market mechanics

17:00 Revenue compression in ancillary services

20:30 How Neoen builds optimisation capabilities in-house

23:00 Battery + wind firming: delivering baseload renewables

25:30 Virtual battery products explained

29:00 Risk management for firm products

32:00 Solar cannibalisation and price suppression

38:00 Long-duration storage pipeline

44:00 Rate of change of frequency (RoCoF) services

47:00 Are batteries now the cheapest system service provider?

50:00 Contrarian view: what the market is getting wrong

51:39 Wrap-up

Modo Energy | modoenergy.com

Australia has built one of the world's most competitive battery storage markets — and it got there faster than almost anywhere else on the planet. What started as an experiment in South Australia in 2017 has grown into a mature, multi-gigawatt industry that is now redefining what grid-scale batteries can do.

In this episode of Transmission, host Wendel Hortop sits down with Jérémie Yvon, Head of Energy Management at Neoen Australia, to explore how one of the country's largest renewable energy companies is navigating the rapidly evolving battery landscape across both the National Electricity Market (NEM) and the Western Australian Electricity Market (WEM).

They cover the maturation of the Australian battery market, how Neoen structures battery revenue across two very different market designs, the rise of virtual batteries and firm renewable PPAs, long-duration storage investment, and why Jérémie believes battery oversupply is a credible - and under appreciated - risk.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Wendel Hortop - Head of Australia

Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter:

https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch

Chapters

0:00 Introduction — the hospital generator analogy

1:45 Guest intro: Jérémie Yvon and Neoen Australia

4:30 NEM vs WEM: how battery economics differ

8:30 Hornsdale: from proof of concept to system services

11:30 NEM design — volatility and five-minute trading

14:00 WEM design — capacity market mechanics

17:00 Revenue compression in ancillary services

20:30 How Neoen builds optimisation capabilities in-house

23:00 Battery + wind firming: delivering baseload renewables

25:30 Virtual battery products explained

29:00 Risk management for firm products

32:00 Solar cannibalisation and price suppression

38:00 Long-duration storage pipeline

44:00 Rate of change of frequency (RoCoF) services

47:00 Are batteries now the cheapest system service provider?

50:00 Contrarian view: what the market is getting wrong

51:39 Wrap-up

Modo Energy | modoenergy.com

The energy grid needs reliable, carbon-free power around the clock and geothermal might be the most underestimated solution on the table. A century of oil and gas expertise is now being repurposed to unlock heat sitting beneath our feet almost anywhere on Earth, and in doing so, it's also unlocking a new form of long-duration energy storage that requires no mountain, no reservoir, and no battery chemistry.

In this episode, host Alejandro Diego sits down with Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geo Systems. Together they explore how Sage is moving beyond the geological constraints of conventional geothermal, what it takes to engineer a reservoir from scratch, how their underground pressure storage system works like an inverted pumped hydro plant, and why companies like Meta and the US Department of Defense are already signing on.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst

Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter:

https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch

Chapters:

00:00 Next-gen geothermal intro

01:49 Cindy Taff background

04:51 Geothermal opportunity

07:19 Conventional geothermal limits

08:39 How geothermal works

10:38 Geothermal grid baseload

11:44 US heat resource map

13:13 Oil and gas drilling tech

16:50 Discovering underground storage

17:21 Earth Store technology

18:07 Storage capacity explained

19:35 Fast dispatch no degradation

21:42 Pelton turbine explained

23:47 Why viable now

25:30 Energy storage business model

27:12 Target customers

28:27 Development obstacles

29:52 Permitting process

31:36 Meta 150MW deal

33:41 5.5 terawatt potential

36:17 Grid transformation impact

37:49 What drives Cindy

39:16 Direct heating use case

40:30 Sage 2035 milestones

42:20 Energy expansion contrarian view

The energy grid needs reliable, carbon-free power around the clock and geothermal might be the most underestimated solution on the table. A century of oil and gas expertise is now being repurposed to unlock heat sitting beneath our feet almost anywhere on Earth, and in doing so, it's also unlocking a new form of long-duration energy storage that requires no mountain, no reservoir, and no battery chemistry.

In this episode, host Alejandro Diego sits down with Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geo Systems. Together they explore how Sage is moving beyond the geological constraints of conventional geothermal, what it takes to engineer a reservoir from scratch, how their underground pressure storage system works like an inverted pumped hydro plant, and why companies like Meta and the US Department of Defense are already signing on.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst

Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter:

https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch

Chapters:

00:00 Next-gen geothermal intro

01:49 Cindy Taff background

04:51 Geothermal opportunity

07:19 Conventional geothermal limits

08:39 How geothermal works

10:38 Geothermal grid baseload

11:44 US heat resource map

13:13 Oil and gas drilling tech

16:50 Discovering underground storage

17:21 Earth Store technology

18:07 Storage capacity explained

19:35 Fast dispatch no degradation

21:42 Pelton turbine explained

23:47 Why viable now

25:30 Energy storage business model

27:12 Target customers

28:27 Development obstacles

29:52 Permitting process

31:36 Meta 150MW deal

33:41 5.5 terawatt potential

36:17 Grid transformation impact

37:49 What drives Cindy

39:16 Direct heating use case

40:30 Sage 2035 milestones

42:20 Energy expansion contrarian view

How a battery gets optimised, from the moment a contract is signed to the millisecond a trade is placed, is still a black box for most people in the industry. Understanding that process is the difference between leaving money on the table and extracting maximum value from every asset.

In this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter is joined by Fabrizio Fenu, Head of Business Development at EDF UK. They pull back the curtain on how battery optimisation actually works at scale: how assets are treated fairly across a large portfolio, why merchant, floor and tolling contracts suit different investors, what role AI and algorithms play on a live trading desk, and why co-located solar and battery projects are harder to finance than they look.

Chapters

00:00 Intro: Optimising 5GW

01:18 EDF's Battery Business

01:47 5GW Portfolio Scale

02:25 From 50kW to Commercial

04:44 Inside the Trading Floor

06:22 Winning Big Battery Contracts

08:01 Debt and Revenue Certainty

09:21 Merchant vs Floor vs Toll

11:05 Optimiser Market Consolidation

13:39 AI in Energy Trading

16:10 Energy Careers Advice

17:57 Fair Asset Treatment

19:25 Day-Ahead and Ancillary Markets

22:45 Enduring Auction Capability Explained

25:51 Intraday Pricing and Indexing

28:37 Perfect Battery Asset Quickfire

31:45 Co-location Solar and Battery

35:12 Battery Retrofitting Explained

36:21 Connection Reform and Scale

37:37 Simplify the Energy Industry

How a battery gets optimised, from the moment a contract is signed to the millisecond a trade is placed, is still a black box for most people in the industry. Understanding that process is the difference between leaving money on the table and extracting maximum value from every asset.

In this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter is joined by Fabrizio Fenu, Head of Business Development at EDF UK. They pull back the curtain on how battery optimisation actually works at scale: how assets are treated fairly across a large portfolio, why merchant, floor and tolling contracts suit different investors, what role AI and algorithms play on a live trading desk, and why co-located solar and battery projects are harder to finance than they look.

Chapters

00:00 Intro: Optimising 5GW

01:18 EDF's Battery Business

01:47 5GW Portfolio Scale

02:25 From 50kW to Commercial

04:44 Inside the Trading Floor

06:22 Winning Big Battery Contracts

08:01 Debt and Revenue Certainty

09:21 Merchant vs Floor vs Toll

11:05 Optimiser Market Consolidation

13:39 AI in Energy Trading

16:10 Energy Careers Advice

17:57 Fair Asset Treatment

19:25 Day-Ahead and Ancillary Markets

22:45 Enduring Auction Capability Explained

25:51 Intraday Pricing and Indexing

28:37 Perfect Battery Asset Quickfire

31:45 Co-location Solar and Battery

35:12 Battery Retrofitting Explained

36:21 Connection Reform and Scale

37:37 Simplify the Energy Industry